Northumberland councillor faced 'targeted attack' by online bots after campaigning with Andy Burnham
A Northumberland Labour councillor has revealed she was subjected to abuse by online bots and trolls after campaigning with Andy Burnham in Makerfield
Cllr Caroline Ball, who represents the Ashington Central ward, received what she described as “coordinated attacks” after a day on the campaign trail in the North West.
Attackers flooded the councillor’s inbox and feed with comments and messages using foul language
She said: “I shared a picture of me supporting Andy Burnham and it has generated a lot of angry responses and a lot of negativity.
“A lot of it when you started going into it was from bots, but some of it was from local people. It is coordinated attacks, I suddenly had 100 extra comments on my page.
“Over my term, things are getting a lot worse. It’s people from all over the country doing these coordinated attacks, it’s targeted.
“I get people wanting to be upset and wanting to have their say, but being angry doesn’t give you an excuse to be so horrible. It’s the times that we’re living in, but there’s people at the end of it.
“Somebody has to read that. Just because you’re in the public eye, you shouldn’t be subjected to abuse.
“I’m more than happy to be criticised by anyone, but have the guts to come and speak to me about it. If you want people in public office to do something about an issue, get in contact with them and don’t abuse them.”
According to the BBC, crimes against MPs have more than doubled since 2019 and reached almost 1,000 last year. Much of this is driven by allegations of harassment, criminal damage, and threats to kill, with death threats reportedly “commonplace”.
The Local Government Association found 52% of councillors reported that they have had untrue or misleading information about their political or personal conduct publicly published, while there were also high rates of reported abuse and intimidation. Seven in 10 councillors reporting experiencing these issues and said they felt personally at risk while fulfilling their councillor role.
One quarter of respondents said that they or someone closely connected to them had experienced a threat of violence or death, and 21 per cent of these had reported an incident to the police, showing the serious nature of these incidents.